Agreed Also...

For ZOC purposes.. Use scout as they have higher mobility and able to absorb quite a substantial amount of damage compared to spear/sword. Also able to dish out damage too...

I said it first!

lol.

I do realise that. lol.
I was actually talking about what you make from turn 1.
You don't normally recruit anything till turn 3/4 at the earliest. lol.
Well if you are your either cheating or a lunatic. lol.

That's what we're trying to say.

Train horses. If you don't need to ... don't spend (or spend little).

Then raise your barracks, with your saved income ... and some turns after ... buy your higher level papers and rocks.

I find it a bit off that the only basic unit worth buying is scouts.

There are SOME uses for swords early game surely, else why have them?

Yeah... Only use I know of them is cannon fodder


Don't trust us on that. Go experience it out yourself in the higher level game. Try what you are saying in here the mass sword/spear thingy. Then come back and comment on it

I really have no business in this discussion, the amount of talent and experience in this thread speaks for its self, but that's never stopped me before and besides I'm sure someone will set me straight. I have played Benjamin and several of the players posting here, so hopefully I can provide a little insight from a noobs point of view, so here goes.

The posted question was about the best way to utilize troops each turn and prioritize threats.

Speaking strictly about battles, the only thing that has really made a difference in my battles is a better idea of how Zone of Control really affects the flow of a turn. Movement and controlling my opponents movement plays a huge part in how I utilize my forces and prioritize threats. Its not unusual for one of my battles to turn into a race with every unit attacking every turn and just plain trying to kill my opponent faster than he is killing me. However it is movement and the lack of that really decides the outcome, for example if my opponent has a large number of ranged units and only a handful of melee, he is going to use the terrain and his melee to protect those ranged units while they reduce me to a bloody spot on the map. In a case like this priority targets aren't the biggest baddest forces that he has its actually those one or two key units that if eliminated will allow the movement of my forces thru or around the front line and into those ranged units.

Another example is facing a force of all melee, in this case its not so much which type of unit to target but which units have been left exposed. A large force that through battle has been cut down to 3 or 4 population units, is a lot harder to surround and crush than say two or three 10 pops are. When I start an attack on something I always try to finish him off so that next turn I have one less thing to block my path. Larger units like a 10 pop Heavy Cavalry will take several attacks to kill in a single turn, so again by targeting key units that block my movement, I am able surround those heavy hitters and hopefully eliminate them in a single turn.

If some of the long time vets would be gracious enough to comment on some of the methods that I have mentioned, I'm certain it would help Benjamin as well as myself and the other new players.

I see nothing wrong with your reasoning or your tactics here: as general rules your methods are sound. There are specific cases where they may not apply, but you'll find those out through experiance .

What may help you more is if people comment on my question "biggest new player mistakes" in the "what to talk about thread", also conveniently located in the strat forum .

BRAVO 872, early on when I was learning to battle, Gutterfly told me that it is better to cut down forces more or less equally. In other words, you may have 3 HC against you. You can concentrate solely one one at a time but you are leaving two powerful troops at full power. It may be better in the long run to fight 3 five pop HC's then 2 ten pops. those boys pack a wallop.

"Ranged controls movement" was another early lesson from (then Boevoipes, now Chiron). If you have ranged advantage you control what the other player has to do. They pretty much have to either get out of range or attack a solid front line at a disadvantage while being cut to ribbons. If you can get a shot at those ranged with your own, you can get a more equal balance and that may save you from a slow death. Just never allow a comm to live if you have any way to kill it, they really add so much to ranged it will halve your opponent's strength in that department if you can get at the lousy bastids. That's why most folks move them up, shoot ranged and move them back out of possible range. Very valuable.

OK, now I have a question (LOL, newbs always 'jacking threads)

Since you mention the importance of Coms on Ranged;

How do those bonus' work? is it by pop, or by stack?

I'm in a duel right now that the guy is pumping off ALOT of 1pop Coms, is this going to give him MORE mods than if he had larger stacks?

Example;

what is the bonus for a 1x10pop stack?
what is the bonus for 2x5pop stacks?
what is the bonus for 10x1pop stacks?

I was assumeing it would work out equally, but this guy has me worried, he's been around for awhile, and I'm sure he's not going to use them for ZoC... (!)

If you'll go to Help>Online Manual> Characters>Medieval> Commandeers(yellow link) you'll see that:
___________________
Special Abilities :
Command Bonus : +2 Attack to neaby* armies per troop. Each troop gains best Command Bonus only.
___________________

So, a ten population commandeer will boost the attack of armies within 3 hexes by a total of 20, or up to 50% if 20 would go above 50%.

A marksman's unaided attack is 18. Having a 10 pop comm within 3 hexes raises this to 27! It would be 38 without the 50% cap. (Add tech bonuses and building bonuses in a campaign and you'll see attack values in the 80's!)

Since having a greater attack strength than the opponent's defense strength is what this is all about, you can see the need to have comms in battles.

Note the stipulation that each troop recieves only the best command bonus, so the biggest stack of comms near the troops will be the one used, but there won't be any added bonus for other comms nearby.







*typo, btw

Could someone elaborate on how to "Add tech bonuses and building bonuses in a campaign and you'll see attack values in the 80's"

Armor and Weapons techs...plus depending on the location of your unit(ie.towers...especially if you're in your own castle) and the experience level...attck/def points increase as your unit's experience does...

Armor and weapon techs I understand but that doesn't put me anywhere near the 80s.

Put a ballista in a tower in a castle, put a 10 pop comm next to it. Then get master weapons.That should get you up there!

Without looking it up, you get +20 attack in a castle, +7 for the comms (due to the 50% limit on comm support), +30 for the master weapons. Add that to the ballistas 14 attack. If I'm right about my figures that's 71 attack. It's gotta be close to that because I've had over 80 attack before.

Somebody smart help me out here!

*...Still waiting on the smart person...*

Look at it from this perspective.

Beside the additional range gain, the added benefits of attack modifier are a GREAT thing.

So we have our ballista with attack of 70 and defense of what ... *sticks tounge out and counts with fingers* let's say 60 (have no idea)

So we have a stack of 10 ballis with 70/60.

This mathematical unjustified stack of ballis attacks a plain-joe stack of ballis (both within range of each other).

Ballista does 6-10 multiplied by size of stack it's 60-100, let's continue the mathematical leniancy and say the damage is 80 (for those who can divide it's (100+60)/2 ).

The receiving ballista is the same so we continue our numeric path and get also a damage 80.

They are both ranged, so the RPS modifier doesn't play a role here.

We'll do away with the ranged penalty (there is a penalty on damage the further out you go)

We'll do away with the ballista size bonuse (there is a bonus on ballista based on the size of the stack you're attacking)

So to keep it simple, we have an attacking ballista doing 80 damage with att/def modifiers of 70/60, and a defending ballista doing 80 damage with att/def modifiers of somewhere 14/6.

So here we go.

The attacker damage is MODIFIED by using the attackers attack modifier minus the defenders defend modifier, since it's greater than 1 then it's doubled ... 70 - 6 = 64, then doubled is 128.

This is stated in percentage + 100%, so it ends up 228% ... This would normally be something else since we let go of size bonus and the distance penalty (which is bigger).

But well the precise number is not the most important thing, it's what it does.

So now your original damage of 80 is multiplied by 228% ending up in a much improved 182!!!

Now the other side, the retaliation.

The defender has an attack modifier of 14 minus the defenders modifier of 60, is 14 - 60 = -46, this in percentage + 100% is a not so shabby 54%.

So now your original damage of 80 is multiplied by 54% ending up with a very dissapointing 43!!! (again modifiers and penalties ignored)

Ballistas have a health of 30 ... so 182/30 is just over 6, while 43/30 is just shy of 1 1/2.

Our attacking ballista will lose just over 1 troop, leaving the stack just shy of 9.
Our defending ballista will lose just over 6 troops, leaving the stack just shy of 4.

Moral of the story, mathematics is great, attack and defend modifiers are greater.

*Removed the culprit o's*

Last Edited : Sunday, 11 November 2007 - 04:54

OK, g's math looks great...but here's a grammar correction that I see SOOOOO much here in the forums, so gueritol...not picking on ya man...I've seen the mistake posted by many others and arrrhhhhh, finally...I decide to post.

loose: (loos) 1, free from fetters or restraint; not tight or close; not bundled. 2, make loose; set free; release; untie

lose: (looz) 1, be deprived of; be parted from. 2, cease to have. 3, cause or suffer defeat in (a game)

*loose,loosen,lose
Loose is an adjective meaning free or relaxed and a verb meaning to set free.
Lose is a verb meaning to mislay or to be defeated.
Loosen is also a verb, meaning to make or become loose.

OK (topic)....so, when another player trains spears and swords, I'll let loose my scouts and he'll lose the game.

Oh...Mog & gueritol...those other additional attack points will likely come from battle experience....I think 99 is the max.

Loosen up, don't lose your cool.

noose: hangman's rope, to hang, to end one's life, to walk in front of ballis in a tower in opponant's castle with spears and militia!